Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 1924-17 August 1988) was the President of Pakistan from 1978 to 1988, succeeding Fazal Ilahi Chaudhury and preceding Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Biography
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, in British India (present-day Pakistan), on 12 August 1924. He graduated from Delhi University under British India with a bachelor's degree in economics and he saw action in World War II as a general of the British Indian Army. Zia-ul-Haq later opted to join the Pakistani Army in 1947 and he fought in the Second Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. In 1970 he was sent to Jordan as a part of an advisory mission and he put down the Black September in Jordan uprising of 1970-71. In 1976 he was made a Four-Star-General and Chief-of-Staff of the Pakistani Army by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Since then, he plotted to overthrow Bhutto, misinforming him in order to inspire popular unrest against his rule. Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto in 1977 in a coup and in 1978 he was elected as the new president.

Zia-ul-Haq became a dictator and he had Bhutto executed in 1978 for authorizing the murder of Ahmed Raza Kasuri, a political opponent of his. He played an ambiguous role in the Soviet-Afghan War, sending troops and arms to support the Mujahideen in their fight against the communist government of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This led to the ouster of the communists from Afghanistan, but also the importation of heroin, refugees, and Islamism into Pakistan. On the foreign front, he increased Pakistan's power in the Islamic world and increased relations with the United States, China, and Europe. He also increased the GDP of Pakistan and tested nuclear bombs, in addition to supported Sikh extremist group Babbar Khalsa in their struggle against India in Khalistan. On 19 August 1988 he was assassinated by Murtaza Bhutto, the son of Zulfikar Bhutto, when his plane was sabotaged. He died with two American diplomats in a crash near Bahawalpur in Punjab.